Nekomasu

Nekomasu, active as Virtual Noja Loli Kitsunemusume YouTuber Ojisan (Japanese: バーチャルのじゃロリ狐娘Youtuberおじさん), is an independent Japanese VTuber who began activities in November 2017. The act became one of the most talked-about channels of the early virtual YouTuber boom because of the contrast between its fox-girl avatar and its plainly undisguised male voice.

Profile

Item	Detail
Activity name	Nekomasu
Also known as	Noja Loli Ojisan
Debut	November 8, 2017
Agency	Independent
Brand	Kemomimi Oukoku (Kemomimi Oukoku Kokuei Housou)
Character type	Anthropomorphic fox girl
Language	Japanese

Career

Nekomasu started activities on November 8, 2017, using the long name Virtual Noja Loli Kitsunemusume YouTuber Ojisan, which was soon shortened to "Noja Loli Ojisan." The channel quickly became a hot topic. Its audience grew fast on both YouTube and Twitter within a few months of the debut. Commentators have called Nekomasu the first independent VTuber to reach the top of the scene. This showed that a creator could become a leading virtual YouTuber without corporate backing or a large budget. In early 2018, the channel was discussed alongside Kizuna AI and Siro as one of the most prominent virtual YouTubers of that time.

From early 2018, Nekomasu's channels ran under the brand Kemomimi Oukoku Kokuei Housou, usually shortened to Kemomimi Oukoku. In July 2018, Nekomasu announced that the channel would become more of a virtual variety channel and that it had been transferred to LiveCartoon LLC. The channel changed its name from "Kemomimi VR Channel" to "Virtual Program Channel." It was then handed to other hosts, who presented a VR variety show about VTubers called Vangumi. Nekomasu did not appear in this new format. It was not popular with existing viewers, and the channel dropped out of the scene's top ranks before the end of 2018.

After the transfer, Nekomasu was active mostly on Twitter and Niconico under the name "Virtual Noja Loli Kitsunemusume Former YouTuber Ojisan." The original channel stopped posting after August 2019. In October 2019, a successor channel called Kemomimi Oukoku launched, and its host gradually switched to a new model, Nekomasu-chan. The independent career included several hiatuses and channel rebrands.

Activities

Streaming style

The channel's content centred on a 3D fox-girl avatar. Its main draw was the mismatch between the cute appearance and the voice, which was never altered or hidden. Characters connected to the Kemomimi Oukoku brand include Mikoko, Nekoma (Virtual Nekomimi Majokko YouTuber Ojisan), Nekomasu-chan and Nezumi-san. After the 2018 change of direction, the original channel focused on VR variety programming instead of solo videos.

Characteristics

The character is an anthropomorphic fox girl. The name combines "noja," an old-fashioned way of ending sentences often given to fox characters in Japanese fiction, with "loli" and "kitsunemusume" (fox girl). Observers have said Nekomasu stood out from other top VTubers of the time because viewers found the act relatable. Its success is often cited as evidence that budget and gender were not barriers to becoming a leading virtual YouTuber.